Reducing the swelling of tissue‐adhesive hydrogels is crucial for maintaining stable tissue adhesion and inhibiting tissue inflammation. However, reported strategies for reducing swelling always result in a simultaneous decrease in the tissue adhesive strength of the hydrogel. Furthermore, once the covalent bonds break in the currently reported hydrogels, they cannot be rebuilt, and the hydrogel loses its tissue adhesive ability. In this work, a nonswelling hydrogel (named as “PAACP”) possessing regenerable high tissue adhesion is synthesized by copolymerizing and crosslinking poly(vinyl butyral) with acrylic acid, gelatin, and chitosan‐grafted N‐acetyl‐l‐cysteine. The tissue adhesive strength of the obtained PAACP reaches 211.4 kPa, which is approximately ten times higher than that of the reported nonswelling hydrogels, and the hydrogel can be reused for multiple cycles. The as‐prepared hydrogel shows great potential in soft bioelectronics, as muscle fatigue is successfully monitored via the electrode array and strain sensor integrated on PAACP substrates. The success of these bioelectronics offers potential applicability in the long‐term diagnosis of muscle‐related health conditions and prosthetic manipulations.
The drift or fall of stretchable neural microelectrodes from the surface of wet and dynamic tissues severely hampers the adoption of microelectrodes for electrophysiological signal monitoring. Endowing the stretchable electrodes with adhesive ability is an effective way to overcome these problems. Current adhesives form tough adhesion to tissues by covalent interaction, which decreases the biocompatibility of the adhesives. Here, we fabricate a strong electrostatic adhesive (noncovalent interaction), highly conformal, stretchable microelectrode arrays (MEAs) for the electrophysiological interface. This MEA was composed of polypyrrole (PPy) as the electrode material and hydrogel as the stretchable substrate [the cross-linked and copolymerized hydrogel of 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid (AMPS), gelatin, chitosan, 2-methoxyethyl acrylate, and acrylic acid is named PAGMA]. Strong and stable electrostatic adhesion (85 kPa) and high stretchability (100%) allow for the integration of PPy MEAs based on the PAGMA hydrogel substrate (PPy−PAGMA MEAs) on diverse wet dynamic tissues. Additionally, by adjusting the concentration of AMPS in PAGMA, the hydrogel (PAGMA-1) can produce tough adhesion to many inorganic and elastomer materials. Finally, the PPy−PAGMA MEAs were toughly and conformally adhered on the rat's subcutaneous muscle and beating heart, and the rat's electrophysiological signals were successfully recorded. The development of these adhesive MEAs offers a promising strategy to establish stable and compliant electrode−tissue interfaces.
Neural electrodes, as a bridge for bidirectional communication between the body and external devices, are crucial means for detecting and controlling nerve activity. The electrodes play a vital role in...
Flexible piezoresistive tactile sensors are widely used in wearable electronic devices because of their ability to detect mechanical stimuli. However, achieving high sensitivity and low hysteresis over a broad detection range remains a challenge with current piezoresistive tactile sensors. To address these obstacles, we designed elastomeric micropyramid arrays with different heights to redistribute the strain on the electrode. Furthermore, we mixed single-walled carbon nanotubes in the elastomeric micropyramids to compensate for the conductivity loss caused by random cracks in the gold film and increase the adhesion strength between the gold film (deposited on the pyramid surface) and the elastomer. Thus, the energy loss of the sensor during deformation and hysteresis (∼2.52%) was effectively reduced. Therefore, under the synactic effects of the percolation effect, tunnel effect, and multistage strain distribution, the as-prepared sensor exhibited a high sensitivity (1.28 × 10 6 kPa −1 ) and a broad detection range (4.51−54837.06 Pa). The sensitivity was considerably higher than those of most flexible pressure sensors with a microstructure design. As a proof of concept, the sensors were successfully applied in the fields of health monitoring and human−machine interaction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.